Ex-Culpeper mayor expected in court to fight defamation suit Friday

WASHINGTON – The former mayor of Culpeper is expected to be in court this week for his first appearance in a defamation suit, the Free Lance-Star reports.

Kim Alexander, the town’s former manager, is suing Chip Coleman for $25,000.

Alexander says a few weeks before the town council terminated her employment as the town manager, she began hearing from multiple sources, including staff members and citizens throughout the town, “that the mayor had been going around and telling people that I was having a sexual relationship with three different council members,which was completely untrue,” she said in an interview with WTOP in August.

She says the accusations were so ridiculous that in the beginning she didn’t believe anyone would say such things about her. But then Alexander says, “I was told there was documentation, text messages that were from him (Coleman) that actually did say that.”

She says she waited about a year after leaving Culpeper government before filing the lawsuit.

The Free Lance-Star reports Coleman is set to be in court Friday.

Coleman, who lost his re-election bid in May, is also appealing a sexual battery conviction. That appeal is expected to be heard Oct. 20, according to the Free Lance-Star.